This week, a 44-year-old woman was sentenced to more than two years in prison for procuring drugs to induce an abortion after the legal time limit. The controversial case has shone a light on the fact that abortion is still a crime in the UK.
The Guardian reporter Tobi Thomas, who was at the crown court, heard how the woman obtained the medication after lockdown forced her to move back in with her estranged husband while she was pregnant by another man. To obtain the pills, she told the British Pregnancy Advisory Service that she was under the 10-week limit. In reality, she was between 32 and 34 weeks pregnant when she took them.
The MP Stella Creasy tells Hannah Moore that other women have also been convicted of obtaining abortions and that police investigations into such cases are on the rise. She explains how the UK’s abortion laws, which date back to Victorian times, outlaw the procedure, with a 1967 Abortion Act outlining the circumstances in which it can be allowed. And she makes the case for why decriminalising abortion is so important.
Photograph: NurPhoto/Getty Images
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